Dear Editor,
With regard to the report which appeared in the Kaieteur News edition of July 20, about the windfarm project, I was surprised to read that “The EPA has determined that the Guyana Windfarm Inc…project… is not required to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).”
I find this statement, if true, to be very surprising. It is known around the world that any undertaking of this sort requires an EIA for many reasons, among which are (1) the impact on migratory birds and wildlife, (2) the destruction of the surrounding land – deforestation – and the third and far more important issue, (3) the impact on residents in the immediate vicinity of the project.
Many of us in Guyana pay little attention to the impact of these types of projects on our quality of life. Permit me, however, Editor to draw citizens’ attention to the reality that such a construction has a projected useful life of 20 years, so any mistake made will haunt us and make us endure suffering for at least that length of time.
The major concern related to wind generators is noise pollution. The quietest type of generator that I have been able to identify (there may be others) operates at 84.5dB (A) of noise, to generate 25kw of power. This project is set to produce 1000 times that amount of power, and therefore there has to be a higher level of noise. Any time noise rises by 3.0dB, the noise level has doubled.
For the above stated reasons, wind farms are located away from populated areas. This proposed wind farm is to be located within a few hundred yards of a heavily populated housing scheme and within a few thousand yards of three heavily populated villages. I therefore wish to raise this as a major concern, since for the next two decades, should this project go ahead, life for all those residents will be misery if not hell. Not to mention how the property values will plunge.
I invite you Editor to visit websites such as ‘Solidwindpower.com’ and ‘en.m.wikipedia.org’ (and many others) and research noise related to these structures and get a better understanding of what this project will subject the residents to. I am not against wind power; in fact I am an ardent supporter of the technology. I believe, however, that the location should be closer to the Crown Dam and the savannah areas behind the villages, where the noise will not be a nuisance to residents.
I sincerely hope that you can raise this concern, since many of my fellow residents have no idea what is involved and how miserable their lives are about to become.
Yours faithfully,
Desmond Saul
